Medusa Operation Sept 2-17 2006 Test - June 11, 2022

I've just finished to read a very interesting book written by Rusty Bradley and Kevin Maurer about Medusa Operation. 

It was part of a American-Canadian offensive that took place during the Afghanistan war.

It was an ISAF operation ... one of the largest.

Its goal was to establish government control over Kandahar Province. The book tells about Usa special forces activities supported by some Afghans forces.

Based on the initial plans the Usa special forces actions should have played a "secondary" role but ... at the end we took a very important for the success of the mission.

At the and it was a "tactical victory" for ISAF forces. I decided to write an article for the Italian wargame magazine "Dadi e Piombo" so I decided to take some pics and to test the terrains before to define with my mates the scenario.

All miniatures are 20mm painted by me. Manufacturer is Caesar miniatures.

Below the CAS in action

Canadians on route for their targets

Street fighting 

Taliban forces

USA special forces in action

Modern warfare - March 2022

During a Milano Wargame ... a couple of years ago ... I bought some Caesar miniatures box. I painted some of them with a vegetated camouflage and wrote some posts. 

Last month I started to paint again some minis I had in the boxes and I had not prepared

This time I decided for a desertic uniform

In my opinion Caesar sculpting is very good. Poses are dinamic and well designed ... below some special ops in action

Some snipers and special weapon 

Caesar built also some drone teams ... they were included into German army box but the OTAN' uniforms are similar

I painted also some M2A3 Bradley and some M1 Abrams 

Modern Armies: USCM May 2017

The last modern army that I painted are the US Marines. I started these miniatures after Milano Wargame (at the end of February) but I finished them only last month. 
I decided to paint the USCM with the multi-scale camo pattern (MARPAT). There are different type of camo pattern ... marine, desert and so on ... but I decided for the woodland.

All photos of real USCM in action that you will see below are obtained from the official USCM web site while figures are all Caesar miniatures

http://www.marines.mil/Photos

This is an example of a group of American soldiers wearing woodland marpat

and below some of my figures in action

Obviously I painted also the supporting teams ... below two groups equipped with M2 Browning machine guns that cover the advance of some USCM

Below the original during a test fire at Camp Schwab. The M2 (called also Ma Deuce) is the oldest machine gun currently in the Marines' arsenal

Two 81M mortar with their crews ...

... and the original 

A FGM-148 Javelin launch rocket system in action on a club table and ...

... in the reality

I painted also a sniper team 

For experience woodland Marpat can assume different hues.

I decided for a darkest tone with green tactics and bags

And finally other imagines of my marines during an action in a Middle East village and ...

... in a joint operation with French troops

Modern armies – How it made

I’m working to complete 20mm Modern Army and, at the moment, I’ve to finish forty-fifty Americans before to reach the goal.

I took some pictures of my work in progress.

Generally I prefer to take photos of the miniatures not stand alone but in a good scenario. This time I thought that it could be a good idea to show in what way a fistful of sand and some little plastic pieces can be assembled and painted.

Below some moments of Russian heavy machine gun (NSV 12,7) preparation. To re-create a false rock I used a simple wood bark painted with grey and treated with a Games Workshop shade.

Below miniatures in different stage of preparation

Finally the same miniatures in a simple scenario

Modern armies – Modern Russian Federals March 2017

To paint modern the Russian army it was not easy for two reasons:

- I had an old Italeri box perfect for Afghanistan wars but, of course, not for modern period

- The Russian army has an official uniform but in the last wars (Chechnya and Crimea) they used different type of mimetic uniforms

So I painted them with a soft camouflage scheme

For some miniatures I decided for a simple yellow-green without mimetic scheme

For others only green shades

The Russian Army was born in 1992 after the fall of the Soviet “Empire” and in the last years was involved (officially or not) in different conflicts: Chechnya, South Ossetia, Crimea

Below a company that is walking on a snowing road covered by an APC

Another unit in a different scenario

Using the miniatures of an Orion box and some mortars I painted two groups

Below two snipers

I bought also a Zvelda box with a soviet machine gun NSV 12,7. It is an heavy machine gun with an effective fire range between 1,5 – 2 kilometers